SPENCER, Jesse Ames, clergyman, born in Hyde Park, Dutchess County, New York, 17 June, 1816. His father and family removed in 1826 to New York, where he entered a printing-office in 1830, and in two and a half years mastered the compositor's art. For several years he was assistant to his father, who was a city surveyor. He was graduated at Columbia in 1837, and at the Episcopal general theological seminary in 1840. While a student he was actively engaged in Sunday-school work in what was then a new part of the city. He was ordained deacon, 28 June, 1840, by Bishop Benjamin T. Onderdonk, and priest, 28 July, 1841, by the same bishop. He was elected rector of the church in Goshen in 1840. After two years' labor in his parish his health failed, and he spent a winter in Nice, on the Mediterranean. On returning he was occupied in educational and various literary pursuits. A return of illness led to his going abroad again, and in 1848-'9 he travelled in Europe, Egypt, and the Holy Land. He was chosen to be secretary and editor of the General Protestant Episcopal Sunday-school union and Church book society in 1851, and served in that capacity until 1857. He accepted the rectorship of St. Paul's church, Flatbush, New York, in 1863, which post he held for two years. He was elected professor of the Greek language and literature in the College of the city of New York in 1869, and discharged the duties of this department for ten years of active service, with two years as emeritus professor. In 1883 he was appointed custodian of the Standard Bible, and has devoted his time to authorship, editing, and teaching. He received the degree of S. T. D. from Columbia in 1852, and from Trinity in 1872. Dr. Spencer has published "The Christian instructed in the Ways of the Gospel and the Church" (New York, 1844); " History of the Reformation in England" (1846); "The East: Sketches of Travel in Egypt and the Holy Band " (1850); "History of the United States from the Earliest Period to the Death of President Lincoln" (4 vols., 1856-'69) ; "Greek Praxis" (1870); "The Young Ruler who had Great Possessions, and other Discourses" (1871) ; " A Course of English Reading" (1873); "Sketch of the History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States" (1878); and " Five Last Things, Studies in Eschatology" (1887). He edited "The New Testament in Greek, with Critical and Exegetical Notes on the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles" (New York, 1847); "Caesar's Commentaries, with Copious Notes and Lexicon" (1848) ; the " Arnold Series of Greek and Latin Books" (1846-'56); "Richard Chenevix Trench's Poems" (1856) : "Xenophon's Anabasis," from the manuscripts of Alpheus Crosby (1875) ; and " Origen's Works," vol. iv. in "Ante-Nicene Library " (Buffalo, 1885).